


With a Bang

by Luthor



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, fake dating au, fake marriage au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:44:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14899091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: An AU re-telling of Luisa and Rose's first meeting with a couple of classic tropes.'“Does breakfast in bed count as a one-night-stand?” Luisa asks.She uses the termbreakfastloosely.“Maybe not,” Rose concedes, crumpling herself forward to seek out a proper kiss, “but you’re just too much fun for me to say no to.”'





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really just wanted to write something cute for these two because Lord knows they deserve it. 
> 
> I can promise you that I have three completed chapters, including this one, and all the other two need are polishing before they're ready to post. I'm aiming to get them out every Sunday, and maybe there'll be an epilogue to top them off, if I can manage it.
> 
> Your support and feedback would mean the world to me, so if you can drop me a line here and there to let me know what you're enjoying, what you're thinking, it'd do me the world of good. :)

Morning slips into afternoon without notice.

“I really wasn’t expecting this,” Rose says, and Luisa grins against the underside of her breasts, where she’s been indulgently covering the skin there in open-mouthed kisses. Rose opens her body to her, and Luisa takes, and takes, and takes, just like she had the night before. This is exactly what she needs, right now, and she indulges every whim.

“You’ve said that already,” Luisa murmurs against her ribs and stomach.

Rose’s hands in her hair feels too good, and she turns her head into the attention, until Rose applies just a hint of pressure behind her blunt nails. “I mean it, though,” Rose says, and laughs when Luisa lifts her head just enough so that Rose can catch the rolling of her eyes. “I don’t do this, normally.”

Luisa props her head up beneath her hand, smile coy. “What, sleep with strangers?”

“No,” Rose smirks. She pushes Luisa’s hair back over her shoulders, then runs her hands along her bare arms. They’re both naked and pleasantly warm beneath a thin white motel room sheet; several pillows prop Rose up, just so, giving her the perfect view of Luisa’s cleavage against her stomach. “Stay the night.”

“You’d be surprised by what can happen, if you give something new a chance,” Luisa says, but she’s barely paying attention to her own words, now. She draws patterns against Rose’s stomach with her fingertips, admiring the way the muscles there tense beneath her touch. “But then, if you want me to leave…” she trails off to pepper kisses against Rose’s bare skin, just beneath her naval.

Rose releases a shuddering laugh. “Cheating… I don’t.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I am, honestly.” Luisa lifts her head up just enough to see her. Hair is falling in front of her face again, and Rose helpfully presses it back, clearing her view. She says to Luisa, “you’ve not stopped surprising me since I met you. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything like this, maybe I’m just forgetting the one-night-stand etiquette.”

“Does breakfast in bed count as a one-night-stand?” Luisa asks.

She uses the term _breakfast_ loosely.

“Maybe not,” Rose concedes, crumpling herself forward to seek out a proper kiss, “but you’re just too much fun for me to say no to.”

Luisa hums against her lips. A witty comeback comes quick and easy to the forefront of her mind, but Rose dashes it away again when the tip of her tongue hints against Luisa’s bottom lip. After that, Luisa stops caring about _comebacks_ altogether. She turns her attention, instead, to the flush that warms Rose’s chest, and just how deep a pink she can turn the skin there.

 

They’re still in bed by the time the motel stops serving lunch, and so Rose doesn’t bother to check the room service menu, even when her stomach makes its needs known.

“I need to shower,” she says, while Luisa plays with her hair, “and eat.”

She turns to watch Luisa and the look of concentration on her face as she winds a perfect ring of red hair around her finger. Luisa releases it again when she notices Rose watching, and props herself up on one elbow, hand beneath her head. She’s at a perfect angle and distance from Rose’s face, and Rose does not squash her impulse to kiss her.

“This has been nice,” she says, and her words carry an unmistakable sense of finality. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for it to end.”

Luisa draws back with a contemplative expression. “It doesn’t have to.”

“Hm?”

There’s a twinkle in Luisa’s eye that Rose has come to recognise, already. It fills her with a sense of anticipation.

“Don’t end it,” Luisa shrugs. “I’m serious. I have the room for another two days, and I didn’t really have plans while I was out here. That was kind of the point of me getting away.” Rose bites her lip and looks for just a moment guilty that she can’t remember any of what they’d properly talked about the night before, but Luisa only smirks. “After my remote rehab experience in the mountains, I wanted my integration into regular society to be _gentle_. Staying in bed all day with a beautiful woman more than counts for that.”

“Right,” Rose nods, her cheeks pink and plump with her smile.

She’s remembering now, but Luisa is looking at her expectantly.

She probably shouldn’t—wouldn’t, in any other circumstance, but Rose’s schedule just freed up indefinitely and this may be the first time in her adult life that she can really indulge in something like this. With that in mind, she presses slightly closer to Luisa’s side and plays with the sheet tangled around her thigh.

“I was going to spend the weekend alone, but this sounds like the better option.”

Luisa’s surprise is instant and obvious. “Really?”

“Really.”

“No work, family engagements, a secret fiancée…?”

“None,” Rose grins. “I recently retired.”

“At, what, thirty?”

“And the rest,” Rose laughs. She can’t help but preen under Luisa’s attention. “How will this work, then?”

Luisa stretches down the bed with a sigh.

“How about we decide that over food? This morning has been _everything_ ,” she says, pressing closer to Rose’s lips, “but I’m so hungry I feel faint.”

Rose laughs agreement against her mouth.

 

It’s almost three in the afternoon by the time they eat, but they find a restaurant not far from the motel that’s quiet enough not to care.

With an outdoor table and a large parasol blocking the sun above it, they lunch together in companionable quiet. Luisa is the first to talk, having finished her sandwich. She holds her glass of lemonade in both hands, condensation keeping her palms damp and cool, and watches as Rose picks her favourite pieces out of a fruit salad.

“Here’s what I propose,” she says, as Rose bites into a piece of melon. “We extend this,” and she gestures between herself and Rose, and the table of almost-finished lunch between them, “into something of a prolonged one-night-stand. No strings, just for the next two days. Unless you get too attached, of course.”

Rose swallows the melon with a sip of ice water.

“How could I not?” she asks, and Luisa nods her agreement. “Okay,” she says, sobering, “I think I understand what you mean. We’ll be here sharing the same motel room together, and while we’re here we are— _together_?” She sounds less certain of it, now that she’s said it out loud, but Luisa doesn’t look put-off.

“Exactly,” she says, nodding. “We’ll just be here as your average pair of tourists together, and then when the motel room runs out, we’ll go our separate ways. It’ll be like one of those awful reality tv dating shows, but with less drama – like the opposite of a speed-date. What’s that called?”

Rose wants to say ‘madness’, but she’s falling deeper into Luisa’s spiral. It doesn’t sound like such a crazy idea when she says it.

“A girlfriend experience?”

“For the weekend,” Luisa winks. “And just so you know, I’m not opposed to spending it in bed.”

“Noted, but I actually have a list of things that I want to see while I’m here.”

Luisa perks up again at that. “Such as?”

“Museums, galleries, that kind of thing…”

“I can’t believe I’m dating a nerd,” Luisa intones, but her eyes are sparkling with excitement.

“Fake-dating,” Rose grins, “for the weekend. And I prefer _cultured_.”

Luisa hums, unconvinced.

“Since we’re doing this, then, you should probably know my surname,” Rose says, and she reaches across the table with her hand, “Rose Ruvelle.”

“Ruvelle,” Luisa says, like she’s committing it to memory. She takes Rose’s hand in a firm shake. “Luisa Alver, and it’s nice to properly meet you. You know, that’s a good point, actually.” She releases Rose’s hand and tucks her chair in just a touch closer to the table. “Maybe we should get to know each other first, before doing this. Make it really convincing.”

“Who are we trying to convince?” Rose asks.

“Anyone,” Luisa shrugs, like it’s unimportant. “Anybody who sees us. That doesn’t matter.”

“Right… you want to know more about me?”

“Are you kidding?”

Rose presses her bottom lip between her teeth. She has good reason to hesitate, and a bad past to bring up on first dates. Or, fake dates. Or, anywhere, if she’s being completely honest. “Okay,” she says, despite herself, because Luisa is looking at her both hopeful and expectant, and Rose doesn’t like to make a habit of _disappointing_. “But I want information in return.”

“Ooh,” Luisa says, eyes squinting, “were you some kind of cop, before you retired?”

“Lawyer,” Rose says, and smiles at Luisa’s quiet _ah_. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m an OB/GYN,” Luisa answers, and her face falls. “ _Was_. I was an OB/GYN. I guess I’m technically unemployed at the moment.” At Rose’s questioning look, she divulges, “I left my job at the hospital about three months ago, but my dad runs something of a family business. By my count, that’s two pieces of information, so I get two questions.”

Rose squints at the logic, but doesn’t argue.

“Why did you retire?”

It’s a heavy question with a loaded answer. Rose feels it like the weight of a gun in her hand, or perhaps something less dramatic.

She takes a sip from her water and places the glass carefully back on the table, so that it barely clinks as it touches the top. “I was good at what I did,” she says, after her brief hesitation. “I earned a lot of money very quickly, but the— that kind of work environment wasn’t good for me. It wasn’t making me happy, so I stopped.”

Luisa nods her head, like she’s catching the deeper meaning of those words and relates. Rose thinks she’s just a very good listener.

“Second question?” she asks, clearing her throat.

She’d been hoping to break the tension of her previous answer, and thankfully Luisa grasps onto the new question with quiet excitement. She folds her arms together on top of the table and leans closer, like she’s about to pry into uncomfortably personal depths with this next one. Rose tenses in preparation.

“What’s your middle name?”

Rose can’t help but scoff. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Luisa says. “I should know, if we’re fake-dating.”

They really needed a better term for that.

“Well, alright.” Rose rolls her eyes, but her smile is warm and bright, and she doubts she could tamper it down if she tried. “Actually, it’s Rose. Not even my mother uses my first name, _which_ , if you remember, you didn’t ask for and so don’t even look at me like that. I’m not cheating by giving you the answer to the question that you asked.”

“It’s kind of cheating,” Luisa objects, but Rose’s smile is coy and closed-lipped, and that’s how she’ll stay on the matter. “Ask your next question quickly, because I have an important one.”

“Okay,” Rose nods. “Cats or dogs?”

Luisa hesitates. “Both?”

“Good answer.”

“So, kids or no?”

“Kids,” Rose says, and almost surprises herself by how certain she sounds of it. To shift the spotlight off herself for a moment, she asks, “You?”

“Same,” Luisa agrees. “Adoption, though, that’s my one condition. Is that okay?”

“I’m happy with that. Are you single?”

Luisa almost forgets that they’re playing a game. “Divorced,” she manages, nodding. She tilts her head toward Rose in askance.

“Widowed,” Rose answers.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Rose shakes her head. “It’s been years and I’ve come to terms with being a lesbian, since. We were never going to work.”

“Did you love him?”

“It’s not your turn to ask a question.”

Rose’s eyes are twinkling and not necessarily offended, but Luisa catches herself and stops from pressing any further. She doubts that Rose appreciates an inquisition over lunch, and really, she doesn’t care. Rose _does_ seem to appreciate her dropping the subject matter, at least.

“Have you noticed that we’re very compatible?” Luisa says, smiling. She looks at Rose like she’s appraising her, and she’s very much enjoying what she sees. Rose supposes she hadn’t been joking, then, when she said she’d happily spend the weekend in bed. “Did your schedule of tourist activities start tonight?”

“Mm-mn.” Rose shakes her head. “Not until the morning. Why—you have an idea of what to do for the rest of the day?”

“I have a few,” Luisa agrees.

 

 

When Rose said she had a list of destinations that she wanted to see while she was here, Luisa thought she’d meant figuratively.

“Is this your bucket list?” she asks, turning the page over to read the second side. It’s not like Rose’s handwriting is _large_ , either. It’s cursive and compact and easy to see where she’d lost her flow of things to add, as opposed to where she hadn’t been able to write quickly enough. “You said you’re only here for the next two days, right?”

“It’s not that long,” Rose scoffs, and Luisa sends her a _look_ over the page. Rose takes it from her in retaliation. “I’ve already done three of these last night, at least,” she says, briefly looking around for a pen, before giving the search up.

“I’m on your list, huh?”

“Not exactly,” Rose smirks, looking Luisa up and down. “But you should be.”

Luisa grins, fixing a summer hat in place over her hair. “Alright, I’m ready. Where to first, lady?”

Rose scrutinises the list, then checks her watch. “Come on, I’ll show you,” she says, grabbing her car keys.

 

“I’ve just lost the habit of dining out two nights in a row,” Luisa mutters to herself, perusing a desserts menu.

It had been an eventful day, and she’s more than happy that they’re taking dinner slow.

Across from her, Rose sips on a fruity mocktail and smiles. “I’d offer to cook, but,” and she shrugs delicately.

“You cook?” Luisa asks, and becomes wholly uninterested in the desserts menu once Rose nods. “You had the time to, being a hot shot lawyer?”

Rose hums a laugh at Luisa’s eyebrow raise. “Actually, no,” she admits, setting her glass back down on the table. “I used to, before life got so busy.”

“There’s nothing stopping you now,” Luisa points out.

“That’s true. Did you have fun today?”

“I did. Why?”

Rose shakes her head, but gives a reason, anyway. “Just checking in. As your fake-girlfriend for the weekend, I wouldn’t want you to get tired of me dragging you around the city all day and night.”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve been dragged, exactly, but you certainly have an impressive walking pace.”

“I have a lot to see,” Rose shrugs, and Luisa laughs her agreement, thinking of the list. They’d crossed off another seven items from it today, and put an asterisk next to at least four more, marking plans for the final day ahead of them. “Besides,” Rose continues, fingering the stem of her cocktail glass, “you explained that last museum exhibit better than the guide. I’m not boring you, am I?”

“No,” Luisa shakes her head, smile wavering for a second. “No, not at all.”

“You’re sure?” Rose presses, and Luisa has an idea of where she’s going with this, but she’s not helping her. “It wasn’t just that last exhibit, you know?”

Luisa wets her lips, but she’s smiling, now, coy and a little meek in ways that Rose hasn’t seen before. She sets the desserts menu down and fiddles with the corner of it for a moment. “Yeah, I like to read,” she shrugs. “I tend to soak up information really well – I’ve never had to revise for an exam in my life.” Rose arches a suspicious eyebrow, and Luisa sighs in defeat. “I have an I.Q. of a-hundred-and-fifty-two, but it hasn’t been a big deal since I was in high school.”

Rose’s expression begs to differ.

Luisa takes a sip from her drink – something cool and yellow and zesty – to diffuse her own discomfort with the topic.

“You’re not joking,” Rose says, after a brief pause. Luisa shakes her head. “I… don’t know what to say,” she laughs. “Why are you downplaying it?”

“It’s nothing,” Luisa shrugs. “I mean, I know it is, but it isn’t. It’s just one of those things that tends to hang over my head. My dad brings it up, occasionally, to remind me that if I’d really _applied_ myself—” She cuts herself off with an eye roll and a shake of her head. “But, he’s right, so I can’t get too mad at him. That’s one of the things I thought a lot about, while I was in rehab, actually.”

“Your father?” Rose prompts, genuinely interested.

“Yes,” Luisa agrees, and then smiles a little wickedly. “I am very book-smart, but I used it to cruise through med school. Maybe if I went _back_ to school, though, if I gave it some direction…” She seems to realise that she’s oversharing and with Rose, no less, and her cheeks turn the faintest of pink beneath her tan. “Listen to me, hogging the conversation.”

“Not hogging,” Rose corrects her, reaching over the table to lay her hand over Luisa’s. “You just get more and more surprising.”

“Do you like surprises?” Luisa asks with a self-deprecating smirk.

“Usually not. Let me get the bill?”

“What—you don’t want dessert?”

Rose looks up from her purse with a smile. “Oh, I do, but not here.”

 

Luisa wonders if it’s because she hasn’t been with a woman in so long, why she and Rose have such good sexual chemistry together. It’s not like she’s usually unresponsive; Luisa finds sex easy, enjoyable, like having a _really interesting_ conversation, but this is different. This is a throbbing between her legs at such an intensity that she might _die_ if Rose doesn’t touch her there again, soon.

She wonders, and then Rose pushes her sundress up over her thighs, and Luisa’s thought process promptly _stops_.

She’s sitting in Rose’s lap on their motel loveseat, her hands in Rose’s curly hair, knees on either side of Rose’s hips. Her bra has already been deftly unfastened and removed from beneath her clothes, and Luisa has spent the last distracted minute undoing every button in Rose’s blouse. It billows open, finally, and Luisa sighs into the kiss as she cups Rose’s breasts.

They’re smaller than her own, even with the push-up bra, and perfect.

Rose’s hands slip beneath her bunched-up dress, taking their fill of Luisa’s ass, and squeezing. Luisa grinds involuntarily forward. She’s sensitive there, and along her lower back; Rose has already discovered that she can have Luisa wet and close before she’s even touched her, and it’s brought her nothing but enjoyment since.

“Oh, that feels good,” Luisa whispers, breaking the kiss.

She’s already breathing heavily and tips her head back as Rose’s mouth descends along her throat, instead.

“Sit still,” Rose murmurs against her skin, smirking, “I’ve got you.”

Luisa curses, and when she looks down again there’s hair in her face and a layer of perspiration covering her skin. Rose draws back to see her, pink in the cheeks and her pupils blown, and it leaves her breathless. She reaches both hands up to gently tuck Luisa’s hair out of her face, and Luisa captures one hand before she can draw it back.

“I can’t—” she stops, biting her lip, and takes Rose’s hand to where she needs her.

Rose’s lips part as she watches her hand disappear beneath the bunched hem of Luisa’s dress. Her fingers meet with underwear, soft and warm, until Luisa pushes her hand further down. “Oh, Luisa,” Rose whispers, moving her fingers against her, “you’re so wet.” Luisa’s response is muffled agreement.

Her hips move of their own accord, pressing her against Rose’s hand, grinding into her fingers.

Rose dips her head to pepper open-mouthed kisses along the tops of Luisa’s breasts, where the sundress can no longer contain them. She closes her eyes and loses herself momentarily in the rhythm—in soft sighs and moans above her, and the incomparable heat behind Luisa’s soaked underwear.

“Rose, I’m close,” Luisa says, like a plea, like she’s sorry. She wants this to last, she wants to wait, but her body has other ideas. “I can’t stop—”

Rose soothes her with a hum. “Don’t stop,” she urges, and stops her teasing to slip her fingers beneath the hem of Luisa’s underwear. She finds her bare, wetter, warmer, and slips two fingers into her without resistance. Luisa’s body shudders against her, but she picks up a new rhythm easily enough, fucking herself on Rose’s fingers.

Rose watches her, dry-mouthed, as Luisa makes eye contact while still moving against her.

She would check in around this point, normally, make sure that what she’s doing is pleasing her partner, is comfortable and pleasurable and enough, but Rose cannot find her voice. Luisa is open before her, her eyes glazed but clear, _seeing_ her as she clenches around Rose’s fingers, as she grinds the heel of her palm against her clit, and Rose _sees her_.

It’s too much.

Luisa loses the rhythm with a start, a convulsion, a gasp. She presses forward, forehead to Rose’s, eyes closing as she reaches climax and comes shuddering back down again. Rose continues to move inside of her, slowing, indulgent, pressing and twisting and grinding her hand against Luisa, until Luisa shudders and babbles for her to stop. She has one hand around Rose’s wrist, keeping her still, the other clenched in Rose’s blouse.

Luisa is oversensitive and momentarily paralysed with Rose’s fingers still inside of her.

“ _Rose_ ,” she sighs, like an accusation, as she opens her eyes again to see Rose’s smug-smiling face. “I need a moment.”

“Take your time,” Rose hums, leaning in to kiss her.

Luisa’s kisses are languid, slower than before, less urgent. She kisses Rose like she’s savouring her, like she wants to commit the act to memory, for later. Rose has similar ideas. Finally, Luisa draws back and carefully pulls Rose’s hand out of her underwear. Before Rose can wipe her fingers off, Luisa guides her hand up, and takes them into her mouth without hesitation.

She holds Rose’s gaze as she draws her fingers slowly out of her mouth, tasting herself on them, and Rose _chokes_.

“Bed,” Luisa tells her. “I don’t want to ruin your outfit any more than I already have.”

Rose nods her head, yes.

Dazed, she would agree to anything.

 

 

On the final day of their weekend together, Rose takes Luisa to an art gallery.

It is mid-day and stiflingly hot outside, but the gallery is cool and air-conditioned and quiet. Rose slips her hand into Luisa’s and draws her closer to a painting that she wants to study. It’s of distant fishing ships on an overcast day, caught on a sea that blends in with the sky, making the tiny bobbing boats look like they’re floating.

Luisa, paying more attention to a leaflet she’d picked up when they walked into the gallery, nudges Rose with her elbow.

“Hey, this isn’t the gallery from your list,” she says, showing Rose the leaflet. “You’ll miss that exhibition with the rocks.”

Rose smiles and shrugs. “I thought we could use some spontaneity, after yesterday.”

“But you won’t finish your list,” Luisa presses.

“I know,” Rose says, turning back to the painting. “I’ll just have to come back.”

It is innocent enough that Luisa does not want to draw conclusions, but she smiles, privately, and imagines a second trip like this. It’s nothing that Luisa has done before, but that’s what’s making it so exciting, she thinks. A quick glance at Rose’s watch fills her with a suspicious amount of dread. They had checked out of the motel earlier that morning and handing the key back had really driven the message in that this was it.

Soon, Luisa would return home to her family, and Rose would— well, Rose would do whatever rich retired thirty-something-year-olds did.

Luisa had her ideas.

“You don’t like this one?”

Rose’s voice in her ear startles her, and Luisa realises that she’s been frowning at a piece of art for the last minute. Rose turns to the artwork in question, studying it like she’s trying to see what could make it so offensive.

“It’s fine,” Luisa says, and Rose masks a laugh behind the clearing of her throat. She gives Luisa’s hand a fond squeeze. “Come on,” Luisa says, feeling suddenly short-of-breath, “this piece looks more interesting.”

 

They take coffee and pastries in the gallery’s over-priced café, on a shaded balcony covered in climbing ivy and the scent of lavender.

It’s been a quiet day, the art gallery isn’t bustling like the streets outside are, and up here on the balcony they can appreciate how removed they are from the bustle of the busy city. Rose finger-feeds herself a scone while skimming the leaflet from before, her foot nudging gently against Luisa’s beneath the table.

“Rose,” Luisa says, and Rose looks up while cleaning crumbs off her fingers. “Thank you for this weekend.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Rose says, looking surprised. “I’ve had a really great time.”

“Me, too,” Luisa grins, and she’s the prettiest thing Rose has seen, she swears. “It’s been different.”

“It has,” Rose agrees, and then she realises, as if she’d ever forgotten, that this is their final day together. She presses her bottom lip between her teeth and worries her next question over for a good minute, while Luisa sips her coffee and admires the view from the balcony. “Can I—” she stops herself, too late, and Luisa looks curiously over.

“What?”

“I was going to ask you something,” Rose says, breaking eye contact, “but I’m not sure how you’ll respond.”

“Something offensive?” Luisa probes, squinting.

“Not exactly.”

“Then, try me.”

“Well—” Rose stops, again, and sighs at herself. “What if you say no?”

Luisa’s expression turns intrigued. “Now, you have to ask me.”

Rose bites her tongue, but Luisa’s expression is open, honest, and a little pleading. She feels her cheeks warm at her own insecurity. “I was going to ask you for your number,” she blurts out before she can stop herself. Luisa’s face lights up—and promptly falls. Rose feels her stomach clench at the sight.

“Oh,” Luisa says, and Rose is half-way to apologising, to telling her to forget it, “I don’t own a phone…”

Rose stops, blinks. “What?”

“Yeah, the— rehab. I mean, when I say that, it’s what my brother referred to as a _hippy retreat_ , so… no phones. Or, other material possessions, really.”

“I did wonder why you were travelling so light,” Rose muses.

“I needed to let go of some things,” Luisa says, and Rose doubts she means just her cell phone, or the like.

“I can respect that.”

Luisa’s smile dimples. “Oh, but you should absolutely give me your number, still.”

“Alright,” Rose agrees. “When I next have a pen— _remind me_.”

Luisa agrees with a grin.

“Okay,” she says, setting her coffee mug down, “let’s get out of here while it’s early. We still have time to check a few more items off your list while we’re here, so we might as well.” She steals a piece of scone that’s too large to be called a crumb from Rose’s plate. “Unless you’d prefer to do something else?”

“Anything,” Rose says, “I don’t mind anything at all.”

 

_Anything_ turns into walking the streets and waiting for inspiration to strike.

Rose’s list burns a hole in her back pocket, but she puts it out of her mind, for now.

She wants to enjoy the time she has left with Luisa, and a part of her is still holding out hope that she’ll come here, again, and it’ll be like this, and they’ll get to complete the list together without rushing through it. It is wishful thinking. It is pining, at best, and it’s not what Rose does, but here she is.

Luisa’s hand in hers feels too good. She’s half-tempted to ask Luisa to stay longer, just another night, or ten, and it hurts just a little too much when she bites back the urge.

“Oh, look,” Luisa says, letting go of Rose’s hand to point out a touristy gift shop.

Rose laughs when she sees it. “Really?”

“Yes, really. If we don’t leave here with at least three postcards and a fridge magnet, we’re not leaving.” 

“Dramatic,” Rose grins. “And that’s not exactly incentive.”

“No?”

“Not unless you’re asking me to stay.”

“I didn’t know that was an option,” Luisa says, tucking her hair behind one ear. Rose holds her breath; she feels suddenly too anxious to even look at her. “Is it?”

There’s enough hope behind the question that Rose can laugh, when she hears it, over how silly she feels to doubt that they had a serious, genuine connection.

Her answer is cut off by a loud bang behind her, and Rose jumps and turns, and does not understand, at first, how Luisa has completely disappeared from behind her. She’d been right there, within reaching distance, before— the sound of somebody screaming startles Rose again. She presses a hand to her chest and turns, unseeing, to where Luisa is lying in the middle of the street.

She is granted a full three seconds of glorious incomprehension before Rose realises what has happened, and she screams.

 

 

Rose is hyperventilating when the ambulance stops. She follows the paramedics out in a daze.

Her focus is trained solely on Luisa, limp in the stretcher, her eyes closed and unmoving. She tries to reach for her, but the paramedics are too quick, and when they speak to her Rose can’t hear them through the static in her ears. They urge her along with them, though, and it takes Rose too long to realise that they’re asking her questions about Luisa – who she is, who Rose is to her, if she has any allergies.

“Where are you taking her?” Rose asks, panicking. Her fist closes in the shirt of the person closest to her. “Where are you going?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you’re going to have to stay here—”

“No, I—”

“—condition, we need to get her to surgery immediately. If you have any information on who—”

Rose feels her vision white-out and then return.

When she can make sense of her surroundings, again, she’s standing alone with a woman who she doesn’t recognise, a clipboard in her hand. “Ma’am?” she asks again, as Rose stares blankly ahead. If asked, later, why she did what she’s about to do, Rose will struggle to answer. But, she had watched Luisa disappear without knowing if she would see her again, and she _can’t_. She can’t.

“Luisa,” she tells the woman, who begins writing on her clipboard. “Her name is Luisa Ruvelle, and she’s my wife.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I said Sunday, but I have over half of the epilogue written and I'm impatient.

Luisa wakes to breakfast on her bedside table and sunshine in her eyes.

Once she’s cleared her bleary vision it’s to find Rose at the windows, fixing the curtains back in place and admiring the view. Outside, the mountain grass moves in the wind like a current, with little white flowers bobbing and dancing in the gust. Rose cracks a window open, just so, and sweet, cool air blows inside.

“Good morning,” Rose smiles, and Luisa sits up properly in bed as she nears. “Sleep well?”

“Really well,” Luisa agrees. A breakfast tray is set over her thighs; there’s fruit, and pastry, and orange juice – and a little glass of water with a yellow flower poking out of it. “Sit with me,” Luisa tells Rose, patting the bed, “and help me finish all this.” It’s not a lot to pick at, but Rose obliges, anyway.

She pops a piece of melon past her lips, and Luisa hyper-fixates on it until it disappears.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Luisa asks, taking a sip from her orange juice.

“No plan, today. In fact, we’re doing exactly nothing today but staying in bed.”

“Is that so?” Luisa’s voice bends with amusement, but then she catches sight of the window, again. “It’s such a gorgeous day, though. Why don’t we take a walk?”

She’s prepared to argue her case further, but Rose is already slipping the breakfast tray out of her lap and replacing it with herself. Her knees go to either side of Luisa’s hips, and she’s a full head taller than her, smiling, with her hands on Luisa’s shoulders. And, well, Rose _was_ a hot shot lawyer; Luisa can’t be too disappointed that her argument had never stood a chance.

“You’re staying right here,” Rose tells her, and Luisa grins and squeezes her hands around her hips. “And I’m going to take such good care of you.”

 

 

Rose wakes with a jolt.

Her body feels ruined from a night spent upright in a chair, and it takes her several seconds of massaging her lower back before she can stand again. She’d kicked her heels off the night before, and pads bare-foot to Luisa’s bedside, where she sits and takes her hand. A customary glance at the heartrate monitor machine confirms that everything is fine, as the doctors had told her, but Luisa still hasn’t woken up.

“If I’d known you’d go to these lengths to stay in bed,” Rose murmurs, reaching forward to brush Luisa’s hair away from her face. She feels a pang of guilt and horror as her fingers almost graze the bruise that’s blooming red and purple across her left eye and temple. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

Rose loses the next few minutes to blind anger.

She’d had Luisa’s hand in her own, had been leading her along across the street, she’d been _just there_. Rose had given a scathing recount of the incident when asked for her statement, and she knows already that someone will _pay_ for this, but seeing Luisa before her, now, it doesn’t feel like enough. It won’t be enough, not unless she gets to run the distracted driver over herself, once Luisa awakens.

“Look at you,” she sighs, rubbing Luisa’s wrist to calm herself down. “I read that talking to coma patients is supposed to help them, I think. Maybe you can hear me? The hospital is trying to find your family, but nothing so far.” She frowns, momentarily guilty. “I’ve not been much help, either. If I’m being honest, I forgot your surname when they asked, and… oh, I may have done something ridiculous. You might laugh, but you might also think I’m some kind of creep, so that’s why I haven’t told you sooner.”

Rose watches Luisa as though waiting for a response.

She doesn’t exactly expect Luisa to miraculously open her eyes at the intrigue, but she can hope, and she does.

When no grand awakening happens, Rose sighs and threads their fingers together.

“I told the hospital that we’re married,” she whispers, leaning closer, and for a second a small smile plays at her lips. “I just wanted to make sure I could come visit you here. We’re not family, we’re not even— well. It’s going to be awkward when they realise I’m not actually your wife, but I’m prepared for that. I just had to know you were okay.

“So, if you really want to get rid of me,” Rose presses forward, her grip on Luisa’s hand tightening, “you need to wake up right now and tell me to leave you alone.”

That’s how a doctor finds her, several minutes later, leaning over Luisa and still waiting for her eye to twitch, or her brow to crease, or to feel Luisa’s hand move in her own. Rose doesn’t notice her, at first, and startles when the doctor speaks.

“We have your number, Mrs. Ruvelle, if you’d like to go home and get some proper rest. We’ll notify you the second there’s a change in her condition.”

Rose looks at the woman with delayed comprehension. “Go home—? No, I, it’s fine. I don’t want to leave.”

“Then at least pick up some breakfast from the canteen,” the doctor presses, running a quick check on the machines monitoring Luisa, and then coming around to her other bedside. She performs a quick basic check up on the visible damage and seems satisfied with Luisa’s healing process so far. “She’s a tough one, you know?”

“She’s in a coma,” Rose snaps weakly, and the doctor’s expression softens. “She’s doing okay?”

“She’s recovering well, so far,” the doctor agrees. “We’ll know more once she wakes up, of course, but she’s showing no major signs for concern at the moment. There’s a coffee machine just down the hall, if you don’t want to go too far, but I can promise you the canteen’s tastes better.” The doctor casts her a final look before preparing to leave. “She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”

Rose nods her head, but catches the doctor just before she can leave.

“Have you found her family yet?”

“Not yet,” the doctor says, and looks momentarily perplexed. “Pardon me for asking, but the police said you didn’t know who they were?”

Rose feels herself turn hot and red. “No, that’s right. Luisa’s been estranged from her family for a little while, I’ve never actually met them.”

It’s not exactly a lie, Rose tells herself, and the doctor seems to accept it without further questioning. Alone again, she turns to Luisa with a sigh. This is the quietest it’s ever been between them, and she hates it. While they were together, Luisa had always been bursting with energy, had always been burning bright. Rose just can’t imagine leaving her, now, without first seeing her return to that.

“We’re going to have such a long talk when you wake up,” Rose tells her, “and I really hope you don’t ask me to leave, afterwards.”

 

 

“We can’t spend _all day_ in bed,” Luisa groans, flat on her back and exhausted.

She is star-fishing and Rose has to curl up to be able to fit; she slings a leg over Luisa’s and rests her head on her shoulder, getting close. “I never expected to hear those words come out of your mouth,” Rose says, and Luisa laughs against the kiss she presses to her hair. “I have a solid argument for why you’re wrong, though.”

“I would love to hear it,” Luisa grins, trailing her fingers along the leg Rose has wrapped around her. “Later, though. Sleep first.”

“I tired you out.”

“Don’t sound so pleased.”

“I am, though,” Rose sighs, stretching her legs down the bed.

“Me, too.”

It’s late – dark outside – but when Luisa tries to remember the time, she struggles.

She can’t remember the last time that she lost track of the time, like this, but it feels glorious. It feels unreal, like she’s _elsewhere_ , like it’s only her and Rose and the moon and all those stars in the sky, and nothing out there to disturb them. They’ve been here for three days, now, or four—Luisa forgets, but it doesn’t matter, she doesn’t really want to leave.

“Thinking hard?” Rose asks, and when Luisa turns to her it’s to find Rose watching her curiously.

“Barely,” Luisa grins.

Rose presses closer, closing her eyes, and Luisa wraps her arms around her properly to keep her right there. “Tell me.”

“I was just thinking of how nice this is – just us, here, alone – and I don’t even mean just the sex.”

“Which is fantastic,” Rose adds.

“Agreed.”

“Are you ready to wake up, yet?”

“Hm?” Luisa struggles to see Rose, with her tucked so close into her. “What?”

“I said, are you ready to leave yet?”

“Oh.” Luisa muses on that, and knows her answer, already. She wraps herself further around Rose’s body, like they can’t be close enough, like the skin-to-skin contact is all that’s sustaining her. Rose is warm and soft and sweet-smelling, even if her hair tickles Luisa, and her hip is digging just the wrong way into Luisa’s side. “Not yet, no. I want to just stay like this a little longer. Is that okay?”

Rose untangles herself from Luisa carefully, just enough so that she can prop herself up on one elbow and _see_ her.

“That’s more than okay,” she says, and kisses Luisa, soft and chaste. “Now, go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

 

 

Ever since they arrived at the hospital, Rose has wanted to leave, but not like this.

She can’t explain the feeling that roots her in place at the door to Luisa’s hospital room, but it is paralysing and so much greater than herself that she cannot question it, in the moment. She watches the bed, the heartrate monitor, the various other machines and tubing hooked up to Luisa, and she panics.

“What if she wakes up and I’m not here?” Rose asks, and she forgets, in that moment, that she’s only pretending to be Luisa’s wife.

Luisa’s doctor, who Rose now knows as a Dr. Patel, tucks her clipboard under her chin and smiles. “You know we’ll call you,” she says, and Rose does. “And after what she’s been through, the least you can do is shower and eat for her when she wakes up.” She sends Rose a pointed look and, yes, Rose supposes that’s true, too, although she’s reluctant to admit it.

“This is ridiculous,” she says, looking from Dr. Patel to Luisa. “She’s been unconscious for days, how likely is it that she’ll wake up the second I exit the building?”

“Difficult to say,” Dr. Patel hums, brow quirking, and Rose shoots her a look. “I can’t predict when she’ll wake up, it could be ten minutes from now, it could be ten days…”

Rose’s stomach churns. “That long?”

“ _Could_ be,” Dr. Patel re-iterates, “but that’s looking unlikely, right now. Like I’ve been telling you, Luisa’s making good progress. We expect she’ll wake up before the week is out, and if not, well,” she softens her voice at Rose’s suddenly stricken expression, “we’ll address that problem if it arises.”

“How probable is that?” Rose presses, her voice sounding tight and uncomfortable to her own ears. “That she won’t wake up soon?”

“Nothing indicates that this will be the case, for certain,” Dr. Patel tells her, but all of these uncertainties do little to reassure Rose. “I can’t sugar-coat this for you, Mrs. Ruvelle.  Luisa has had a nasty accident and while she’s recovering well, for now, that could change. We won’t have serious cause for concern until the end of the week, if she still isn’t awake by then.”

“But that’s looking unlikely, isn’t it?”

“Currently, yes, it’s looking unlikely.”

But it’s a _possibility_ , and Rose feels the ground unsteady beneath her feet at the idea. She feels dizzy, suddenly, and takes deep breaths until the feeling of being about to pass out clears. When she turns to Dr. Patel, it’s to find kind eyes watching her, and Rose reminds herself that Luisa is in good hands.

“You’ll call me if anything changes? The _second_ anything changes?”

“I’ll call you, personally,” Dr. Patel agrees, and Rose feels lightheaded.

She nods and looks around her, like she isn’t sure what to do, now that she’s not sitting by Luisa’s side. The corridor outside her private room is empty and bright, and Rose stands for a moment, unthinking, before she navigates the hallways and waiting rooms to the front entrance. Daylight is blinding when Rose steps into it, and far too hot against her skin.

She begins to sweat within a minute of standing outdoors.

It’s been two days since she last showered, and she feels it.

Her hair is limp against her head from the last time it was straightened, and her clothes stick to her uncomfortably, holding the wrinkles they’ve gained from her spending so long sitting in a chair. She wants nothing more, in that moment, than to shower and eat and sleep properly for just a few hours.

She hadn’t taken the time, yet, to pick up her car from the carpark she’d left it in, and worries briefly about the tickets it will have gathered.

Taking a breath, Rose brushes her hair out of her eyes and steadies herself. One thing at a time. She places a quick call to the closest hotel and secures a room, then she books a cab to take her there. She can take care of the rest after she’s washed and fed, and then she can sleep, if she can sleep, before returning.

As the cab pulls up and Rose slips inside, she can’t help but hope that Luisa doesn’t wake up while she’s not there with her, and she feels impossibly guilty for it.

 

 

Luisa takes pleasure in cleaning; she enjoys knowing that there was a mess before, and then she fixed it, and now there isn’t.

Besides, when she cleans the windows in their motel room, the view just looks all the better.

“Did I ever tell you what I loved so much about being out here?” she asks, projecting her voice so that Rose can hear her from the table. She receives a quiet hum of interest in return. “It reminds me of this dream I had, once. I think I’d watched some film or a show about an orphan girl in the mountains, I don’t remember, but for weeks I used to dream that I was her and I was living in the mountains, that I had a simpler life.”

“Being an orphan in the mountains would be a simpler life?”

“Than _mine_?” Luisa asks, laughs. “Yes. Without question.”

Rose hums again, unconvinced.

“Well, in certain ways, I mean. There’d be no money, for one. I’d have learned the value of things much sooner, and that if I mess up I have to deal with the consequences, not just run away from them.” She turns her back to the view, for a moment, and looks at Rose. She’s sitting at the table with a newspaper, skimming the headlines. “I’m good at running away from things.”

Rose looks up from the paper with a smile. “I know.”

“But there’s a difference, sometimes. You have to get away from some situations, and that’s not a bad thing. I just… don’t like confrontation.” She turns back to the window, and the view that takes her breath away every time she sees it. “For another,” she continues with her earlier points, “I’m already used to not having a mother, and my dad— well. He _means_ well.”

“Your father coddles you.”

“Exactly,” Luisa sighs. “And he treats my brother like crap. Honestly, it makes no sense to me.”

“You’re an alcoholic,” Rose agrees. “And Rafael is successfully running the Marbella. If your father favoured either one of you, you’d think it would be him.”

“Yeah…” Luisa frowns out at the mountain grass, then clears her thoughts. She turns back to Rose with a smile. “That’s enough hard truths, though. I’m starting to feel self-conscious.” Rose’s expression instantly softens. She drops her newspaper and pats her lap, and she’s everything Luisa wants, and more.

Luisa straddles her on the dining room chair, wraps her arms around Rose’s shoulders.

“Do you think it’s safe for us to leave yet?” Rose asks her, hands on Luisa’s hips and holding her close.

“Not just yet. Just a few more days, yeah?”

“Okay,” Rose agrees, and kisses her. “And then we need to go.”

“It feels like we only just got here,” Luisa sighs, drawing back.

“We did, remember?”

“Not really,” Luisa smirks, but she doesn’t care, it’s not important. “But I know I don’t want to leave.”

 

It’s quiet at night, in the mountains.

It’s dark, too, darker than Luisa was expecting when she spent her first night here.

She has been on her fair share of expensive holidays, but there’s nothing quite like being somewhere remote, like this, where there’s no light pollution to ruin the view of the sky. It’s a clear night and the galaxy twinkles above them, like something from a movie. Luisa is lying on one side facing the open window, and Rose is behind her, holding her tight and warm.

“Do you know why I don’t want to leave?” Luisa whispers, stroking the arm Rose has slung around her with her thumb.

“I have an idea,” Rose says against the back of her neck.

“It’s just easier, here. I don’t have to worry about anything going wrong.”

“I know.”

“And no one can interrupt. No cell service, no email, no bad news. Everything just stops existing when you’re here, it just disappears. Not literally, obviously, but it’s good enough. I just needed that.” She stops stroking Rose’s arm and tucks her hand closer under her chin, instead. “I think I might still need it.”

“You think you left rehab too soon,” Rose surmises.

“Did I?”

“I don’t know. How did it feel, being out?”

“Great, at first,” Luisa smiles, remembering. “I always feel a little better about myself when I leave. It doesn’t always last, though. When I left, this time, everything felt especially too much. Too loud, too bright. I didn’t want to drink, but I knew that I could, that it was always just within reaching distance and no one was there to stop me.”

“You didn’t want to, though?”

“No, I didn’t. I never want to, until I do, and then I _really_ do. I can justify it to myself too easily. It’s just one, it’s just now, it’s just been a really difficult day. I have so many ways of talking myself into thinking that it’s okay, and then the next thing I know I’m waking up on a bench in South Beach, or worse, on my brother’s couch with him and his judgemental girlfriend of the month watching over me.”

She sighs, rubs her eyes. That’s not fair and she knows it.

“I put him through so much…”  

“You don’t trust yourself,” Rose says, her hand finding Luisa’s belly and rubbing soothing circles there.

“Not always.”

“Is that what this is about—us being here?”

“I don’t know.” Luisa frowns but it’s difficult to think about, like there’s a mental block on the subject, like there’s information just out of her grasp. She gives the reach up – it doesn’t really matter. “But what we had, our weekend together, that was special, wasn’t it?” Rose is quiet behind her, but Luisa thinks she agrees. “What if it was just a one-time thing?”

“You could ask me to do it again.”

“I know, but that’s not really what I mean.” She untangles herself from Rose just long enough so that she can face her. “What if this is what it’s gonna be like for me, for the rest of my life? I screw up, I get better, I meet someone I like… I _screw up_ , I get better… lather, rinse, and repeat. How am I ever going to hold down a stable relationship, like this?”

Rose presses a hand to her cheek, brushing dark hair away from her face. “What do you want me to tell you?”

Luisa thinks on it and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You know,” Rose says, pressing closer, “you’d be surprised by what can happen, if you only give it a chance.”

Luisa lets those words sink in, and then laughs. The tension dispels.

“My own words?” she asks, and Rose grins and shrugs and kisses her. “I understand, though, and you’re right, of course. I can’t let fear hold me back, that would be stupid, but it’s not easy. I’ve never really had an easy life, and most of it’s been self-inflicted, but maybe easy is overrated. I just want something real; I want to be happy.”

“And are you?” Rose asks, and she’s smiling so sweetly at her that Luisa can’t help but return it.

When she tries to answer, however, the words stick in her throat.

 

 

Almost any situation feels better once you’ve showered, are wearing clean clothes, and have eaten a balanced meal.

Almost any.

Rose dreads returning to the hospital, but she does not contemplate the alternative. She has checked and re-checked her phone countless times from the second she entered the cab to the hotel, to when she left again earlier that day. She had tried to sleep, and had managed a few hours, but she had been restless.

She takes the quickest route to Luisa’s room, and is almost surprised to see it exactly as she’d left it, hours before.

“You’re still sleeping,” Rose sighs as she nears the bed. She drops her purse down on a chair and takes a seat by Luisa’s hip, wrapping Luisa’s hand in her two. “Haven’t you spent enough time in bed, already? It’s a beautiful day outside, and you’d be horrified by the parking tickets I’ve accrued in the last three days. Thank you for that, by the way.”

It’s difficult to tell a joke when your listener is unresponsive. Rose sighs and plays with Luisa’s fingers.

“Nobody’s even questioned our marriage, did you know? I don’t know whether to be proud of myself, or concerned.” She links her fingers through Luisa’s and uses her other hand to brush hair out of Luisa’s face. Maybe she should bring a brush, she thinks, or some home comforts. “I’ve grown way too attached, haven’t I? Did you know this would happen, back at the motel, when you joked about it?”

Luisa breathes steadily on.

“No, I don’t think so. I wasn’t expecting any of this, either.”

She sighs and pats Luisa’s hand, and then straightens.

“I’m going to get some coffee,” she tells her. “You owe me so much sleep after all of this.” Rose leans forward and presses a kiss to Luisa’s forehead, just missing the colourful bruise. It’s losing its intensity, at least, and Luisa’s eye no longer looks swollen. It still makes Rose wince when she sees it, up close.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she whispers, “I’ll be right back.”

 

On her way back from the coffee machine, Rose detours to the nearest exit.

The hospital grounds aren’t huge, and the funding clearly isn’t going into garden maintenance, but there’s a small outdoor area where Rose can go to clear her head. It’s easier, just a little, to leave Luisa’s side now knowing that the world won’t implode if she does. There’s only so long she can spend inside a single room, and it’s beginning to drive her a little stir crazy.

She worries briefly on an article that she’d read days before, of coma patients being able to hear what’s happening around them, like being trapped inside their own bodies without being able to make anybody aware. She imagines Luisa in a similar state, hearing everything she’s saying, and wonders if the drone of the life support monitor is driving her as mad as it drives Rose. Her own discomfort feels minimal, in comparison.

Before she knows it, ten minutes have passed and her coffee is at a drinkable temperature.

Rose finishes it quickly, eager to be back by Luisa’s side.

She has become familiar with that air-conditioned scent of disinfectant in the last few days, but it doesn’t make it any more pleasant as Rose passes through the hospital corridors again. The route to Luisa’s room is just as familiar, and Rose is half-distracted in her thoughts of hunting down Dr. Patel or a nurse for further update on Luisa’s condition.

She is so distracted that when she enters the room Rose startles at the sight of two men by Luisa’s bedside.

The opening and closing of the door draws their attention quickly to her, and they stand in perfect silence until they each realise that the other isn’t here by accident. “I’m sorry, who are you?” Rose asks, her voice tight from surprise. The men are wearing expensive suits – they’re not nurses, and definitely don’t look familiar.

“We’re her family,” the younger of the two says, perplexed. “And you are?”

Rose feels her stomach sink with the knowledge of what she’s about to say.

“I’m her wife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, again, for all of the support - your comments are amazing, please keep that feedback coming. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Rose has met few of her past partners’ families, but never has it quite gone something like this.

“Luisa remarried?”

It’s Luisa’s father asking, and Rose wishes now that Luisa had told her his name, or if she had, she wishes she’d remembered it. He’s looking at Rose like he can’t believe it, or like he can believe it and he wishes he couldn’t. The hurt is as obvious as a bruise on a peach, and Rose is stumped as to how to help. Or, how to just not make this any _worse_.

“She wouldn’t get married without telling me,” the brother insists, and Rose is sure he’s right, which is what makes this entire situation even worse. “I’m sorry, _when_ were you married? She didn’t mention that she was even seeing anybody when we were last together, and that couldn’t have been… more than five months ago.”

“It was recent,” Rose blurts out. “We haven’t really known each other very long.”

“Yeah, clearly.”

Rose sets her jaw. “The hospital has been trying to find you for days. Where were you?” She has no right or reason to judge Luisa’s family, but it comes quick and easy to her, this role of disgruntled, terrified wife. She does not tell them, _I’ve been by her side every day since she was hit by a car, and it took almost half a week for you to show up here_. It’s not fair and it’s not true, she’s sure it isn’t, but she’s found her role and she’s already committed.

“We had no idea she was even—” he cuts himself off with a short, annoyed breath. “I’m sure Luisa’s already mentioned that we don’t see each other regularly, what with you being her wife?”

Rose opens her mouth to agree, and _thank you very much_ , when Luisa’s father steps in.

“Rafael,” he says, and Rose makes hasty note of the name. His tone is disapproving, but one look from his father quiets Rafael. “We passed a canteen on our way in,” he tells his son, “go and grab us three coffees.”

“Dad—”

“Your sister doesn’t need you causing a scene in here.”

Rafael looks like he wants to argue, and Rose doesn’t blame him. She wouldn’t trust herself in this situation, either, but Rafael’s hesitation does not hold long. It’s with obvious frustration that he leaves, and as soon as the door closes behind him, Rose feels the presence of his father all the stronger for his absence. She turns to Luisa’s father, unsure whether she should thank him or not.

“You’re my daughter’s wife?” he asks, and for just a moment he sounds like an aging father who has just learned that his child has been in a serious accident. Rose nods her head, yes, and he draws out the chair by Luisa’s bedside, just so. “Sit, please, I’d like to ask you some questions about what happened to her.”

Dread feels like a tide coming in around Rose’s ankles, but how can she refuse him?

 

Rose spends the night at the hotel, and she hates it.

She leaves under the guise of letting Emilio and Rafael spend some time alone with Luisa. In reality, she wants nothing more than to get as far away from them and the lie that she’s created. She could just check out of her hotel room, now, and if she left she’d probably never see any of them again. Therein lies the issue, though.

By the end of all of this, if Luisa tells her to leave, Rose won’t necessarily be surprised.

She had been asking Rose to stay, she thinks, or at least to see her again, just before the accident. Rose would have said yes. Now, she can’t help but wonder if her efforts to stay in Luisa’s life won’t just backfire. She recognises within herself the tendency to come on too strong – to grow too attached, too quickly, to pursue something that’s not there because she _wants_ it to be there.

This feels—different. Luisa is different, and Rose feels different when she’s with her.

She’ll be back at the hospital tomorrow, she knows it, to face more of the Solano family’s inquisition.

She just can’t help herself.

 

 

Luisa picks at her breakfast.

Her gaze is focused on the window; she watches the mountain flowers bristle in the wind and tries to recount how long she’s been here, now. She remembers earlier that morning, waking in Rose’s arms, the steaming shower that they’d taken together. She remembers yesterday, but like a string of yesterdays, with three breakfasts melting into each other, and six sunsets that could even just be the one.

Time has escaped her, and for once Luisa isn’t sure that she enjoys the feeling.

“You’re frowning,” Rose tells her, setting down a cup of coffee in front of her.

“I’m just thinking,” Luisa says, and offers a brief smile. “Maybe I’m still tired.”

“I think you’ve slept enough.”

Luisa hums noncommittally.

She looks down at the toast on her plate, buttered just how she likes it, the perfect amount of golden crisp. There’s exactly one bite mark in the slice, and when she’d taken it, Luisa hadn’t tasted a thing. Not the bread, nor the butter, or even the patch of burnt crust in the corner. She looks down at the coffee mug in front of her, at the steam billowing up into her face, but she can’t smell it when she takes a deep breath in.

“I think I’m getting a cold,” she says.

Rose looks up from her paper. It’s the same one from yesterday, with the same headlines. “Do you need to see the doctor?”

“Doctor?” Luisa frowns. “No, I don’t think so.”

“You’re looking a little pale. Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Luisa decides, because maybe if she says it then it’ll be so. “Everything is good.” She grins at Rose and pushes the plate and the coffee mug away from her. “Come with me?” she asks, holding a hand out to Rose as she stands. “I want to do something, today. I don’t even care what it is – maybe we can find a DVD lying around somewhere, or a game?”

“A game?”

“I’d take a deck of cards, at this point,” she pleads, and Rose smiles and stands up. She takes Luisa’s hand and Luisa draws her away from the table and the newspaper, and into the living room. It’s a small living room and it looks suspiciously like the one from her first apartment – the very first place she owned, on her own, away from home. She pulls Rose towards the sofa and grabs the TV remote as they sit.

The screen flicks on to a film or a TV programme about an orphan who lives in the mountains.

“There,” Luisa sighs, snuggling into Rose’s side, “we can watch this.”

 

 

It’s just Rose and Rafael, the next morning.

“Your father isn’t here?” Rose asks, looking down at the three cups of takeout coffee she’d picked up on her way in. She places them down on Luisa’s bedside table, where a new bouquet of bright yellow flowers has been placed. With the blinds open and a little sunlight streaming in, it already looks a little brighter, and Rose regrets not buying flowers sooner.

“He’s busy,” Rafael says, not unkindly. Rose hands him a cup of coffee and he takes it with a nod of thanks. “Rose, I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, picking his words with deliberate care. “I was upset. Actually, I was angry at myself for just now finding out that she’d been in an accident at all.”

Rose accepts the apology with a small smile. “She said you two were closer when you were younger,” she prompts, holding her own coffee cup between both hands, and it’s not a lie. Luisa had talked a little of her home life, of her brother and growing up, how her father treated them, and that she’d had to eventually just get away.

“We were,” Rafael agrees.

“You’re back in her life, now,” Rose muses, turning to Luisa. She wants to re-take her usual seat on the bed beside her, but it feels wrong to do so, when her brother’s right here. She feels Rafael’s gaze on her and isn’t sure what to make of it. His apology had sounded genuine, but Rose doubts he’s given up his interrogation completely. She can’t say she wouldn’t do the same, in his position.

“Can I ask you a question?” Rafael asks, and Rose looks up with a nod. “Why don’t you have rings—if you’re married, I mean?”

Oh.

Rose resists the impulse to look down at her hand and confirm it. She knows she and Luisa aren’t wearing wedding rings because they’re not actually married. When answering Rafael, however… She decides that sticking as close to the truth is what will save her in this lie, and so Rose smiles like she’s been caught and offers a delicate shrug of her shoulders.

“We don’t have them. I mentioned it was… quick?”

“Yeah,” Rafael nods, studying his coffee cup. “Who attended the reception?”

“It was just us,” Rose lies easily, “and a couple of witnesses.”

“Friends?”

“We’d never met them before.”

“And, Luisa took your surname?”

Rose turns to him with a curious expression.

She understands the questions and where they come from, of course, but she can’t help but feel frustrated. In the days since she invented the lie, Rose is discovering that she’s become attached. If she and Luisa really had married in secret, like this, is this the reception she would receive as Luisa’s wife? Privately, she can’t help but understand why Luisa needed a break from her family, if they’re this judgemental.

She has to remind herself, in that silent tirade, that the marriage is fake—that she met Luisa just over a week ago, and she would be concerned above all else if her brother didn’t show _any_ suspicion towards her presence here.

“Yes,” Rose says, finally, “Luisa took my name. I understand that you’re not happy with this, Rafael, and I don’t know what I can do to change that.”

Rafael watches her a moment, drawing his own conclusions, and Rose truly dreads to think what they are.

“You’re right,” he says. “I’m not happy with this. But, right now, that’s less important than my sister so I’m not going to make it an issue while I’m in here.”

He holds her gaze and Rose feels her resolve harden, in spite of it.

“Good,” she says. “Then I can do the same.”

 

“Your brother doesn’t like me very much,” Rose tells Luisa afterward, when it’s just the two of them and the incessant, rhythmic beeping from the heartrate monitor machine. “I don’t think he believes a word I’ve told him, and I can’t really blame him.” She takes Luisa’s hand in both of her own, playing with her fingers. “He really cares for you, though. A lot of what you told me about him makes sense, already, but I can tell he loves you so much.”

She looks up as though expecting Luisa to stir, if only to argue with her.

“We all just want you to wake up, now,” she whispers, leaning in closer. “You can’t leave me alone with your family, like this, it’s really not fair. I would never do this to you, just for the record.” Luisa seems unbothered. “Please—does that help? I promise, I will do anything you want if you wake up before they get back here.

“ _Anything_ ,” she emphasises, and bites her lip to keep it from trembling when Luisa doesn’t so much as twitch. “Please, wake up. _Please_?”

She hears the door opening quietly behind her and turns her head in time to hide the tears in her eyes from whoever has entered.

She is too slow to compose herself, and offers a quiet apology to Emilio as he takes a seat on the chair by Luisa’s bedside.

“Don’t apologise,” he says, and Rose feels ridiculous – feels like a fraud, above all else. She’s no right to sit here and cry in front of Luisa’s father, when she’s known the other woman for not even two weeks. “Rafael said he stopped by earlier. He hasn’t upset you?” Rose turns to him in surprise, but Emilio appears genuine.

“No,” she says, quickly. “No, he hasn’t, I just—”

She turns back to Luisa and, well, she doesn’t exactly have to finish that sentence. Emilio understands.

“It’s horrible, seeing her like this,” Rose whispers. It’s selfish, and she knows that, but he’s really the only person she can talk to about Luisa, and she needs to talk. “I don’t understand how there’s nothing more that the doctors can do, nothing they can give her to wake her up. She’s been in here too long, if she isn’t awake by the end of the week…”

Rose swallows tightly.

“Luisa’s always getting herself into trouble,” Emilio says, and when Rose turns to him, it’s to catch him watching his daughter with a rare expression of fear. He turns to Rose and the fear leaves the hard lines of his face as though it had never been there in the first place. “But she’s remarkably good at getting herself back out of it.”

Rose wants to point out that this isn’t something he can just throw his money at to make it go away – believe her, she’s tried. Covering Luisa’s hospital bills was the easiest financial decision she’s made in years, and the payoff is utterly out of her control. If she could singularly fund the research into coma patient care, she would. In fact, the thought reminds her to put a hefty donation in, when all this is over.

“Everyone has told me she’ll wake up,” Rose says, turning back to Luisa. “It’s just not going to sink in until she does.”

Emilio hums in solidarity.

After a quiet pause, the guilt of piling her own fears onto Luisa’s father gets to her. Rose sniffs away any indication that she’d been close to tears and straightens. “I’m going to go for a little walk,” she tells him, releasing Luisa’s hand. “Would you like anything from the canteen?”

Emilio shakes his head, no, and Rose leaves him alone with his daughter, feeling as though she’s imposed enough already.

She really can’t believe herself, sometimes, and it’s this kind of self-deprecation that leads her to a small window-seated table, alone in the canteen. Rose doesn’t think she can stand to drink any more coffee today, so she buys a bottle of orange juice and picks at the label, pretending that she ever intends to drink it.

Is her life so empty without her career, Rose wonders, that she’s integrated herself directly into the life of the first woman who’s shown any proper interest in her for years now that it’s over?

Rose sighs and rubs at her temples. She’s tired of lying – she thought she’d left all of this behind, that this was exactly the kind of thing she wanted to _stop_ doing so that she could have something of a normal life. That had been the idea, anyway, but Rose wonders now if maybe she’d acted prematurely. Or if, perhaps, she’d just thought too much of her ability to lead a straight-and-narrow kind of life.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the pulling out of a chair to her table.

She looks up, ready to tell whoever it is that they’re welcome to take the chair elsewhere, when she recognises Rafael.

“Mind if I sit?” he asks, and does anyway. “I have a few more questions.”

“I’m really not in the mood, Rafael,” Rose sighs.

“Right.” Rafael nods, folding his fingers together on top of the table. Rose sends him a look that asks, none too politely, for him to leave her alone. He’s utterly unphased. “So, were you going to tell us before Luisa wakes up, or after, that you two aren’t actually married? Because, personally, I think she may have something to say about all of this once she finds out.”

Rose’s heart stops.

"What?"

"I looked into your story," Rafael says, like it’s obvious that he would have, and it is. 

The precariously constructed lie falls away beneath Rose’s feet like a snapping branch. 

She peels her clenched fingers away from her bottled orange and places them instead very carefully upon her lap. Her expression is controlled, neutral; this, at least, she can do with neither much effort nor thought. Rafael wets his lips, watching her, eyes squinting as though trying to see directly into the reasoning behind her doing _any_ of this.

“How long were you realistically going to keep lying?”

Rose releases a slow breath. She has told too many tales in such a short amount of time, and she is exhausted by them, buy the strength it takes to keep them from unravelling. “I wasn’t thinking properly, when I told the hospital,” Rose says, but Rafael’s expression is unforgiving. “I just wanted to make sure that they would let me visit her, that’s all. I’m not family, they could have just turned me away at the desk.”

“It’s a _big_ lie,” Rafael says. He doesn’t believe her, now, and Rose can’t really blame him. “How long have you actually known my sister?”

“A week. We spent last weekend together, that was the first time I met her. But, Rafael,” Rose says, as he snorts and shakes his head, “I do care for her, I swear. I shouldn’t have lied and continued to pretend that it was the truth, especially to you and your father, but I panicked. I need to stay here to make sure that she’s okay when she wakes up, and if Luisa doesn’t want to see me again after that…”

She stares him straight in the eye, ignoring the way her voice breaks.

Rafael sits back in his seat, momentarily unsure of what to say.

“You’d known her three days and you were pretending to be married,” he says, like he can’t believe it. “That’s—it’s _weird_.”

“I know,” Rose groans.

“It’s really, really wei— you’re covering her hospital bills, aren’t you? You barely know her.”

“Is that important?” Rose asks, feeling a spike of defensiveness.

“It’s a lot of money” Rafael presses.

“It’s _only_ money, I’m in no shortage of it.”

“And what do you want in return?”

“What?” Rose blanches. “ _Nothing_. Nothing, that’s not what this is about, at _all_.”

Rafael bites back his innate need to argue his point further. He runs a hand over his face and turns to look at Rose like he has no idea what to make of her. “What if she wakes up and asks you to leave?” he asks, and Rose frowns at the thought despite herself. “What if she finds all of this just a _bit_ too much and asks you to stay away from her?”

“Then I’ll go,” she says, quietly.

“And the money—”

“Is just money, and it’s already spent.”

“We’ll pay you back, of course,” Rafael says, straightening in his chair.

“That’s not necessary.” He sends her a look that brokers no argument, and Rose relents with a sigh. “Fine. Whatever you’re more comfortable with. But, Rafael,” and she stops, wets her lips, reminds herself that she has very little power here, really, “I’m going to stay until Luisa wakes up. Don’t— no, don’t talk, don’t argue with me against this. I’m not going until she’s awake.”

Her words turn stale in the resulting silence, but Rafael does as she’d demanded and does not argue.

“Despite what you’re thinking of me right now, I care for Luisa. I only want to make sure she’s okay.”

“Fine,” Rafael says, although he sounds anything but.

“Alright.”

Rose takes a breath and is about to stand when Dr. Patel places a hand out of nowhere on her shoulder, startling her.  

“Mrs. Ruvelle?” she begins, and Rose’s heart falls into her guts as she sees her. She nods her head, turns briefly to Rafael, and holds her breath. “It’s Luisa – she’s awake.”

 

 

Luisa paces the motel room.

She feels as though she should be looking for something, or like she’s just walked into a room and forgotten what it was she’d intended to do there. She is restless. She is antsy and uncertain, and when she sees Rose approaching, she sighs and frowns and asks her, “what’s happening here?”

Rose looks pleasantly confused. “What do you mean?”

Luisa swallows and turns around, turns to the window. She isn’t sure what she means, which is the problem. Outside, the colours are too bright, the sunlight is too warm. Luisa feels it seeping in through the window like a gas. It feels like it’s been a quarter-to-three in the afternoon for six days straight. She stares out at the familiar mountain range and wonders, properly, how she ended up here.

“Luisa?” Rose asks behind her. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t… this doesn’t feel right.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know,” Luisa says, laughs, but it’s not amusing, really. It’s a little terrifying, if she’s being honest. “None of this is making sense to me, right now. I just don’t feel… right. Does that make sense?” She turns back to Rose and no, she thinks, no it makes zero sense. Rose’s expression says just as much. “I don’t feel good.”

“Are you not having a good time?”

“What? I mean… I thought I was. I have been, obviously.”

“But, no more?”

Luisa stares at her, desperate. She shakes her head.

“I thought you liked me,” Rose whispers, and she looks for the first time nervous, concerned, upset. Luisa wants instantly to make it go away, but she can’t.

“I do,” she says, because it’s true, because of course she does. “But this isn’t real, is it?”

She steps forward and Rose welcomes her into her arms, wraps her tight and holds on like she’s afraid to let go, like if she does then she and their world here will all just disappear. Luisa takes her face between her hands and draws her in, comforts her in the ways that she knows how. Physical affection always comes too easy, even here, even now. She draws back from Rose’s mouth and pecks her lips again.

When Rose looks at her, then, she knows.

“It’s time to go,” Luisa tells her.

Rose takes her hand on the way to the door.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

Luisa smiles and promises, “I’ve never been surer.”

Then she opens the door and the room fills with blinding light.

 

 

The first face Luisa sees when she wakes up is her father’s, and the shock is so palpable that she huffs in nervous laughter – or tries to.

Her first inhale results in a wheezing cough, and Luisa pitches forward until she strains against her three broken ribs, and winces.

“Careful,” Emilio tells her, pressing her back down to the bed by her shoulders. His touch is gentle but firm, and Luisa hasn’t the strength nor the reason to struggle against him. “The doctor has just administered some morphine, but you might still be tender for a while. Don’t try to sit up yet.” Luisa looks up at him, uncomprehending. “You’ve been in an accident,” Emilio explains. “You were hit by a car but you’re okay, now, you’re in hospital.”

Luisa’s eyes widen. “What—? I wasn’t drinking, dad, I sw—”

“Sh, I know, I know.” He combs her hair back behind her ear with his fingers and Luisa relaxes minutely. He looks behind him at the opening of the door, and Luisa follows his gaze, only to choke on what she tries to say next. Emilio takes her hand in his, but Luisa struggles to focus back on him. “I’ll go get you some fresh water, give you a little time alone with your _wife_.”

“My what?” Luisa whispers.

“Oh, you’ll see.”

Emilio departs with a bristly kiss to her cheek. “Rafael,” he tells his son, “let’s give her a minute.”

“Dad, no, she’s not even h—”

“Outside,” Emilio interrupts, and Rafael closes his mouth with an audible click.

From the bed, concerned, Luisa tries and fails again to sit up. “Raf,” she says, and it’s _I’m okay_ and _we’ll talk later_ , like it always is; it’s the unspoken code that they’ve learned to speak in when around their father. Rafael deflates with a nod, but he looks far from pleased. His absence leaves only Rose, then, and she stands cautiously by the door, looking at Luisa like she hadn’t expected her to ever wake up.

“Rose, you’re here?”

“Yes,” Rose says, and she smiles, and she can’t stop herself from moving closer, from taking her seat by Luisa’s hip, again. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

Luisa wets her lips, looking momentarily nervous.

“So,” she says, studying Rose with sudden intensity, “before you say anything, I think we might have gotten married at some point, and I’m so sorry but I don’t remember any of it. Like, at all, which is horrible, I know, I should remember my own _wedding_ , my god, but it’s not like I’m exactly—”

“No, Luisa, stop,” Rose cuts in. “You haven’t forgotten anything.”

“What? But, my dad said…”

“I know, and I’m apparently a terrible liar as well as a terrible person, but listen.” She tucks herself closer and fidgets, _fidgets_ , with her fingers in her lap. She does not want to reveal this next part, to say the words out loud to Luisa, but there’s no escaping it. It had felt cathartic, with Rafael. Now, Rose kind of just wants to throw up. “I lied about being your wife so that I could visit you in hospital.”

Luisa remains silent in the bed.

“Sorry, what?”

“I know,” Rose breathes, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “It was wrong and I’m sorry, and it makes me sound like I’m crazy, but you’d just been—”

“Hey, you’re not crazy,” Luisa cuts in, and Rose takes an unsteady breath. “Don’t say that about yourself.”

“You’re taking this very well…”

“That I was fake-married to my fake-girlfriend of one weekend?” Luisa asks, her voice dry but amused. Rose rolls her eyes despite herself. “I’m… actually really happy to see you. I think I was trying to ask if I could see you again, back before—well, it all kind of becomes a blur, after the gallery.”

Rose takes her hand with a small frown. “Are you in pain?”

“Not really,” Luisa says, but her voice is strained. “Uncomfortable, but I feel a little whoozy.” She looks troubled by the sensation.

“It’s just the morphine,” Rose says, rubbing her hand. “It’ll wear off, so you should sleep while you can.”

“Sleep? I feel like I’ve been in bed for a week.”

“A few days,” Rose agrees, and Luisa balks. “Don’t worry about that, now.”

“Days,” Luisa repeats, but she’s distracted by Rose’s hand against her own, by the pad of her thumb drawing circling patterns across her knuckles. Rose watches her while her face slackens, and some small part of her wants to cry, if just to release the tension that she’s been carrying from _worrying_ for so long.

“What was it like?” she asks, and her voice is no more than a whisper, but it draws Luisa’s hazy attention none the less.

“I was dreaming… it was nice.”

“It was?”

“Yeah,” Luisa smiles. “But it wasn’t real.”

 

Luisa discharges herself on her third waking day, and not even Rose’s arguments can stop her.

“I’m a doctor,” she insists, “I know what’s best for myself.”

One leg is still in a cast and her entire body aches, but she makes it to the back of her father’s car, one hand securely around Rose’s.

“You’re coming, right?” she asks, half-pulling Rose into the doorway. Emilio sighs from the front seat, but indulges them. “Back to the hotel with us?”

“You want me there?”

“Rose,” Luisa smirks, “of course.”

Rose’s smile is mainly relief. “Then, I’ll follow you up in my car.”

She tucks Luisa back into the car and closes the door behind her. While she’s waving Luisa’s car off, she feels a presence step up beside her, but Rose doesn’t flinch. She waits until the black car has disappeared from view, and then turns to Rafael, expectant. “You have more questions?” she guesses, and Rafael’s expression confirms it. “Rafael, how many times can I explain myself?”

“It’s not about that,” he says, and it takes him a moment to draw his words in, to sort through what he wants to say from what he needs to say – what won’t cause another argument. “I just wanted to know if you’re serious.” Rose frowns, uncomprehending. “About getting to know Luisa.”

“I am,” Rose insists, but the argument drains from her. There’s no need for it, now, and she relaxes minutely at the thought. Rafael is Luisa’s brother, she reminds herself, and so of course he’s concerned. “I really am serious about getting to know her.”

Rafael studies her for a period before nodding. Rose isn’t entirely sure if that means he accepts her word, or if it just means he’ll be amicable toward her the next time they’re in close proximity around his sister.

Either way, it feels like something of a stepping stone, and Rose will hold onto that. 

 

When she arrives at the Marbella, Luisa is already settled in her own room.

Rose finds it with little difficulty, but she feels strange, upon entering, and just a little out of place – like she shouldn’t really be here, like nobody really wants her around.

“Come here,” Luisa tells her when they’re finally alone again, and Rose slips onto the bed beside her with a sigh. “You look so nervous.”

“I am,” Rose whispers, but Luisa only smiles.

“You’ve got no reason to be,” she promises, and presses forward for a kiss.

When Rose can draw back – when she has satiated herself of kisses, and needs only to lounge by Luisa’s side to reassure herself that Luisa’s _awake_ and out of danger – she takes Luisa’s hand in hers and draws patterns in her skin all the way up to her elbow, then back down again. Luisa captures her fingers with her own when the contact becomes too ticklish.

“So,” Rose murmurs, looking across the propped up plump hotel pillows, “what’s on the agenda, first?”

Luisa bites her bottom lip with a grin.

“I’m going to buy a phone,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Then, you’re going to ask for my number, again, and we’ll do this properly.”

“That sounds perfect,” Rose laughs, and draws her into a kiss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... epilogue?


	4. Epilogue

Rose finds Luisa cross-legged on the floor of their walk-in-wardrobe, and startles.

“There you are,” she says, and Luisa tilts her head up with a smile. “What are you doing?”

“I was sorting through some old stuff,” Luisa tells her, and Rose takes in the mess that she’s made of the floor.

There are boxes upturned and their content splayed out around her with comical similarity to a bomb having gone off in their closet, and Luisa is at its epicentre. Old photo albums, and the loose pictures that never made it into them, are peppered throughout the carnage from where Luisa had discovered them by accident and become distracted for twenty minutes looking back into the past.

“Sorting?” Rose repeats, and Luisa snorts quietly to herself. That’s when Rose realises that she’s holding a crumpled piece of paper in her hands. “What’s that?”

While Rose queries it, she already has an idea, and it takes her down to her knees by Luisa’s side until she can confirm it. She recognises her own rushed handwriting easily, even when the paper is faded with age, even though it’s wrinkled like it’s been bent the wrong way for too long, forgotten inside a box full of trinkets. The date at the top of the page is from three and a half years ago, but Rose remembers writing it like it was yesterday.

“I can’t believe we still have this,” she whispers, as Luisa turns the list over in her hands to read the back. “That was the busiest weekend break I’ve ever taken.”

“Agreed—and we left so much undone, look.”

Luisa hands the page over and Rose skims the items yet to be crossed out. One is for a gallery with an interesting rock-formation-exhibition that she’d read about in a paper, another is of a bookstore that she’d wanted to visit since she was a girl, more still are of random locations of varying sentimental value that she’d just wanted to _see_ with her own two eyes.

“You were _quite_ determined that weekend,” Luisa teases, and Rose smiles and lowers the list to deadpan-glare at her, while smirking. Luisa looks far too unaffected by it, for Rose’s tastes. “I still can’t believe we did that. I’m going to so love telling our grandkids how we met—how you stalked me while I was in a coma because you were so desperate to be my wife.”

“You’re not telling them that…”

“You won’t be able to stop me.”

“I know a few ways,” Rose promises, placing a kiss against Luisa’s lips.

And, well, Luisa supposes that she has a point, when one kiss leads to three, leads to four, leads to her completely forgetting what she’s doing or where she is.

Rose draws back with a satisfied smile.

“Your brother rang,” she says, looking distractedly down at the mess of the closet. “He said he can take Pongo for the weekend, and I’ve given a spare key to Joan and Pauletta so that they can feed Duchess while we’re gone.”

“Ugh, I love having neighbours. I wish I had more, growing up.”

“That’s the most middle-class thing you’ve said all week,” Rose smirks, but her business face slips quickly back into place. “We’ve got enough cat food in already, but I want to buy some of that expensive tinned fish that you don’t like; she barely eats when she’s unsettled but that stuff turns her greedy.”

“Alright,” Luisa agrees, because she can argue against Rose that Duchess will be just fine without them for two days, but it’s easier when she doesn’t. “Are you finished packing?”

“Almost… are you?”

“I think so.”

“And, you’ll clear all this away before we go?” Rose asks, biting her lip.

Luisa looks down at the mess around her with a shrug, “sure,” before she becomes distracted again by Rose’s list.

“ _Lu_ …”

“Stop stressing,” Luisa tells her, placing a hand on Rose’s knee. “It’s not allowed this weekend, okay? No work, no family drama, no worrying. You can have an existential crisis as soon as we return, but once we step foot outside of this house on Friday—” and she sends Rose a positively menacing look. “Do I make myself clear?”

Rose rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.

“Crystal. Now, come on,” and she stands with effort, one hand on Luisa’s shoulder for balance, “dinner starts at seven and we can’t be late again.”

“I told you, it’s tradition. Rafael expects it from us.”

“That’s not a good thing,” Rose sighs, helping her stand.  

 

 

Dinner runs late, the way that family dinner with the Solanos tends to, these days, in Emilio’s absence.

Luisa steps out of her heels against their hallway wall and shoots a quick text off to her brother, confirming that they’re home safe. It’s not that he needs to worry – it’s not that he does worry, most likely – but their volcanic sibling relationship is on an upswing, currently, and Luisa likes to make the most of it while she can.

“Baby,” Rose coos as Pongo trots towards them to say hello, tail wagging. She kisses his head and rubs his ears and tells him what a good boy he is, in a voice several octaves higher than her speaking tone. “You’re going to be so brave and well-behaved while your mommies are gone, aren’t you? Yes, you are? Good boy, my sweet boy…”

Rose sends him to bed with another kiss.

Luisa is in a good mood that gets better when Rose slips her arms around her from behind, snaking hands finding her belly. She kisses the skin beneath Luisa’s ear, humming, smiling, and Luisa leans back into her touch. She keeps her phone in hand only long enough to skim-read Rafael’s goodnight text, and then drops it on the nearest surface.

“I want to take you to bed,” Rose says, swaying her, her hands sliding down to Luisa’s thighs and then back up again, pulling the hem of her dress with them. Luisa sighs against her touch.

“You’re tipsy.”

“I’ve had _one glass_.”

“Baby, that’s all it takes these days.”

Rose pats her ass in retaliation, and Luisa turns, laughing, to face her.

She wraps her arms around Rose’s middle, linking her hands behind her, while Rose’s find her shoulders. “I want to take you to bed,” Rose repeats, running her fingers through Luisa’s hair, tucking it back behind her ears, “and make love to you until I fall asleep in your arms. How does that sound?”

“Like some kind of dream,” Luisa hums, squeezing her arms around Rose, just to press her closer. “Tired?”

“Not even a little…”

Luisa grins as Rose leans in for a kiss.

It’s slow and soft, just the pressing of lips against lips and Rose’s hands in her hair. Luisa arches against her like a cat seeking attention. “I was thinking,” she says, drawing back. Rose makes a noise for her to continue as her lips descend down Luisa’s neck. “About Friday… maybe we shouldn’t go to Paris.”

Rose promptly straightens. “What?”

“Well, when I found your list and I saw just how much we had left unchecked on there…”

“You want to go back?” She isn’t against the idea, only surprised. Luisa pushes red hair back out of her face as she watches Rose mull the idea over quietly. “We already have the flights booked,” she says, “and the hotel… we’d lose our deposit. And I thought you wanted to see Paris – it’s _romantic_?”

“ _This_ is romantic,” Luisa argues, but she lowers her intensity, bites her lip. “We can afford to lose the deposit.”

“I know we can, but what happened to spending our money wisely? You’re always complaining about how much we waste, how big our carbon footprint is, how a simpler lifestyle would be better for us—”

“Okay,” Luisa cuts in, “okay, I know. But just this once? It’s for a good cause.”

Rose makes an unconvinced noise.

“Or, we can just go to Paris,” Luisa says, and she tries not to sound disappointed by the idea – she fails so spectacularly that Rose just rolls her eyes.

“I’ll cancel the flights and hotel in the morning,” she groans, but she’s smiling, and more so when Luisa makes a girlish noise and kisses her. Rose is easily distracted by soft lips, by Luisa’s body pressed flush to her own, by hips and ass and breasts and arms – and god, Luisa’s hair, thick and sweet-smelling and far too much of it. She draws back with a hesitant noise. “Bed, first… before Pongo gets over-excited and comes back to see what we’re still doing up.”

“Please don’t talk about our dog when I’m thinking about getting you naked…”

“Sorry,” Rose grins, but she isn’t. She presses a final kiss to Luisa’s mouth. “Come on – and make sure the door’s locked.”

“It’s locked, don’t worry. In fact, don’t think about anything for the rest of the night, I’m going to spend it properly thanking you for taking care of this. I know I put it on you last minute.”

“You don’t need to thank me.”

Luisa turns to her when they’re halfway up the stairs, comically serious. “I’m going to spend the next hour with my face between your legs.”

“Oh, well. That’s fine, too.”

And, Luisa does.  

 

 

It’s late when they arrive, and motel room service just doesn’t appeal.

“I can’t believe you got us the exact same room as last time,” Luisa says, dumping her case on the bed and looking around with a certain kind of wonder. “That really says something, you know, that we booked here so short notice and they gave us _this_ room.” She turns to Rose with a smile. “It’s destiny that we came here instead of Paris.”

“I requested this room, specifically. And, it couldn’t have had anything to do with the motel’s two-star rating? Nobody wants to be here. I don’t know anybody else who would prefer to be here than in _Paris_.”

“Apart from you, of course.” Luisa takes Rose’s bags from her, dumping them at the foot of the bed. She wraps her arms around Rose and Rose leans in to her, gives in to her, the way that she always does. The way that she’s meant to. “This place is special – this is the room where I first made love to you.”

“I thought that was in the pool?” Rose smiles, remembering it. “We also got pretty handsy in my car.”

“That wasn’t making love,” Luisa scoffs, and kisses her. “Admit it, this place means something to you.”

“Of course, it does. It’s just also… a dump.”

“It’s a dump,” Luisa agrees, laughing. “Our dump.”

“Don’t call it that.”

“Do you want to see if the place over the road is still open? I’m starving.”

Rose looks reluctantly toward their bags, but unpacking can wait. They’re only here for the weekend, after all.

 

The restaurant across the road is open, and ran by new management, _and_ not as dead as the last time that they’d visited.

They end up with a table for two indoors, on the first floor, squashed into a corner with a flickering candle between them. It’s not exactly dinner in a five-star Parisian restaurant, but the food is hot, the drinks are cold, and Luisa’s foot is slipped free from its heel and is gently playing with Rose’s own beneath the table.

(In short, it’s perfect.) 

“Do you regret letting me talk you into this?” Luisa asks, popping half an olive past her lips.

“I don’t ever _let_ you talk me into anything,” Rose counters, but there’s fondness in her tone, familiar and warm. She shakes her head, nudging Luisa’s foot against her own. “No, I don’t. Really, we just needed a little break, didn’t we? Somewhere for just the two of us. It could’ve been here, or Paris, or anywhere else – it’s the time away that we needed.”

“You wanted to see Paris.”

“I’ll take you one day, don’t worry,” Rose grins.

Luisa’s smile is soft and sure.

“We did need the break, though,” she says with a sigh, chewing and quickly swallowing another half-olive segment. Rose watches her carefully above a sip from her glass; the candlelight softens her features, highlights the dusting of freckles across her nose, and Luisa momentarily loses her train of thought at the sight.

“My work won’t always be so busy.” It’s said carefully, as Rose sets her glass back down on the table. She fidgets with it a moment longer while Luisa watches. “That last case… well,” Rose smiles, but it’s tired, a little wry. “It was nice to be involved in something that big, again, but I think it’s just confirmed for me that I can’t do it anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“It just—takes too much out of me, out of my time at home, doing other things.” She sighs and sends a plaintive glance across the table toward Luisa. “Doing things I’d much rather be doing, than working myself into the ground. It’s not like we need the money.” She has enough savings to personally purchase a considerably sized private island, if the need ever arises, but Rose has fast come to enjoy living a simpler life.

Besides, she envisions a future of college tuitions and expensive gifts, and her pot of savings will more than help toward that.

“You love your job, though,” Luisa says, drawing Rose back to the conversation at hand. “You always say you’ll take on fewer cases, smaller cases, but you can’t help it.”

Rose frowns, defensive. “I can help it.”

“You like feeling important,” Luisa states, and Rose scoffs.

“I am important,” she says, only to make Luisa smile. She concedes the point with a slow exhale. “Maybe you’re right. But so am I, and I’m serious, really. I’m not saying that I’m going to quit my job and do something as left-field as becoming a _librarian_ ,” and she sends a pointed look toward Luisa, who tips her glass up in mock-salute, “but I no longer need to prioritise my career. It was very, very nice to pick it back up again, it was, but I quit this field for a reason.”

She looks distant, for just a moment, like her thoughts have carried her far from their table.

She hadn’t ever _needed_ to start working again, she’d just been— _bored_.

As with most things, however, Rose has a tendency to dive in head-first to all commitments, and re-joining a law firm had been no different.

“Hey,” Luisa says, taking Rose’s hand over the table and tethering her back to the present. “What did I say? No work talk.”

“You brought it up first.”

“Indirectly…”

Rose smirks, linking their fingers.

“Okay,” she says, squeezing Luisa’s hand. “So, tell me what’s on the itinerary for our trip here.”

And, Luisa does. She reels off a memorised list of events that she knows they’ll be able to fit into their schedule tomorrow, and makes several further points to what they’ll do the day after. “But for tonight,” she says, her gaze dropping to Rose’s plunging neckline, “I think we should spend it _exactly_ as we did the first time we were here.”

Rose makes a noise of fake pretence, but Luisa doesn’t call her out on it.

“In bed.”

 

 

The next morning begins bright and early, with coffee and sunglasses and a tourist map between them.

The city is bustling already in the way that it often is, and the weather is warm and forecast to get hotter as the day progresses. Rose picks at the leftovers of Luisa’s croissant while they finish breakfast at a rooftop café, occasionally stopping to swat away a persistent honeybee or to take a sip from her cooling coffee mug.

“We’re closest to the park with that mural you wanted to see in it, and it’s probably quiet this early,” Luisa says, plotting the distance between their desired destinations on the map in front of her. “If we take this path out of there, it’ll bring us to the gallery, see? Then, when we’re finished there, we can grab lunch from that tapas place on your list – that’s barely even that long of a walk away.”

“Oh, that’s near to the fountain, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Luisa agrees, looking up from the map. “I made sure I had change so we can drop coins in.”

“What’s after that?” Rose smiles, finishing her coffee.

“Well, I figured the botanical garden around this time would be perfect – it’ll be hot, by then, but we can walk off lunch. That’s a ways out, though, so we’ll need to drive. Although, it will be a lot of walking today, if we do both the park and the gardens.”

Rose shrugs delicately. “That’s fine.”

“And, then dinner, ice cream, and sleep,” Luisa finishes. “Tomorrow, we can do all the hard spending – the jewellers you want to see, all those designer stores, that ridiculously over-priced bookshop.” She looks mildly perturbed by that last point, but far too intrigued to give Rose a lecture on the benefits of a library pass.

Their home has enough damn books, already, but Luisa would be a hypocrite if she ever stopped Rose from bringing back more.

“That sounds busy,” Rose murmurs, stealing another piece of croissant. “Paris would have been much more relaxing, you know?”

Luisa laughs and shakes her head. “You’d have dragged me to every damn tourist destination you could find, don’t deny it.” She swats Rose’s hand away from her unfinished breakfast and pops some flaky pastry past her lips, swallowing quickly. “You can pretend to sulk all you want, but I know you’re secretly happy to be here.”

“Not secretly…” Rose frowns, playing with her coffee cup. “You know I’m happy to be here. It’s just—the last time we were here, you were in a very serious accident.” Her voice softens, expression falling back into pensive thought, until she manages to shake it. “It just brings up some memories and feelings that aren’t my favourite, as well as all of those good ones.”

Luisa smiles across from her, softly, softly.

“I know,” she tells Rose, and she does. “But we had a great time here, before that happened, and I want to reclaim that. I want to think back on this place and feel good about it, because it’s where we first met, and as horrible as that accident was it really made us both put things into perspective.”

Rose deadpans her back. “I think we already had things in perspective; I didn’t need you to get hit by a car for me to know that I wanted you in my life.”

“Okay, okay.” Luisa holds a hand up, stopping her there. “But, you know what I mean. And, besides, I’ve gotten a _lot_ better at crossing the road since that happened.”

Rose rolls her eyes and, _don’t joke about that_ is on the tip of her tongue, but it’s Luisa and so of course she will. If there’s one thing more resilient than the woman herself, it’s her sense of humour, and it’s something that Rose loves her for. Even when it’s entirely inappropriate for the current context.

“So, the park,” she says, redirecting the conversation, and Luisa gladly follows.

 

As anticipated, the day consists of a lot of walking, and ends in an exhausted slump in their motel bed.

“My legs will ache tomorrow,” Luisa hums, lying down on her belly while Rose reads quietly beside her. She nudges her with a foot, and Rose peels her attention away from her book long enough to smile in one corner of her mouth. Luisa props her head up on one hand, encouraged. “You know what I could _really_ go for, right now?”

“Some sleep?” Rose asks, and Luisa nudges her with her elbow. With a sigh, Rose concedes that she’ll get little reading done tonight, and tucks her bookmark back between the pages she’s on. The book is delegated to the bedside table, and once free from it Rose turns onto her side to face Luisa, slipping further down the bed so that they’re face to face.

“What could you go for?” she asks, winding a finger around a lock of Luisa’s hair.

“An entire leg massage.”

Rose blinks across at her.

“With oil,” Luisa adds, eyebrows arching. “And scented candles.”

“Mm, I didn’t pack any oil,” Rose says, rolling slowly on top of her. One leg slips between Luisa’s, on instinct. These days, they fit together without effort or awkwardness, almost without thought. “And I’m not sure the motel keeps candles in their rooms.” She presses a kiss to Luisa’s chin, her jaw. “That’d be a safety hazard.”

“Okay, forget about those.” Luisa sounds distracted even to her own ears, but hell if she can help it. “The massage still stands, right?”

“Anything you want,” Rose promises, and kisses her. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“Oh, you’ll regret that…”

Though, Rose is absolutely convinced that she won’t.

 

 

The following day is spent at a similarly relentless pace, up until early evening.

The sun is low in the sky and slipping lower, casting orange-pink light across a table of finished dessert bowls and almost-empty glasses. The end of the week stretches reluctantly on; in less than an hour, they’ll have to begin preparations for their return home. In truth, they probably should have left the restaurant already, but it’s easy to forget about their early morning start when it feels so far away from this moment.

Rose sits back in her chair with a lazy exhale, briefly scanning the other restaurant-goers.

They’re seated outside, with a couple of space heaters either side of their table, keeping back any oncoming evening chill. The food had been cooked to perfection, even if it hadn’t been the famous French cuisine that Rose had been anticipating, before their trip.

“I feel so content,” Rose says, her gaze drawing back to Luisa. “We need to do this more often.”

“I’ll set a reminder in the schedule,” Luisa grins.

“I’m not sure that’s what I meant…”

“If I don’t schedule it, you know it won’t happen,” Luisa argues, and Rose concedes with an easy shrug. There’s nothing to fight about, no reason to disagree, especially when she’s in this good of a mood. Across from her, Luisa folds her napkin three times across her lap, then unfolds it again. “Were you serious – with what you said about your job?”

Rose watches her a moment. “Yeah, I was. Do you think it’s a bad idea?”

“No, not at all, actually. I was just surprised.” She smiles at Rose, soft and small. “But then you surprised me, again, when you first told me you wanted to go back into work.”

“You didn’t think I’d just not work ever again?” Rose asks, smirking, and Luisa rolls her eyes because she kind of had. “Retirement doesn’t suit me. Not yet, anyway. You know I like to keep busy. And, besides,” and she lowers her voice a fraction, only for Luisa to hear, “it’s like an entirely different job, sometimes, when I’m not using it as a front for something slightly less legal.”

Luisa arches an eyebrow at the ‘slightly’. “You’d better not be.”

“Never again,” Rose promises, holding her gaze, and it is an easy promise to make when the sun hits Luisa’s face at an angle and she’s the most beautiful thing that Rose has ever seen in the world, and more. When she’s the love of her life and Rose can make any promise, _any promise_ , that will protect the life that they’ve got here together, that they’ve created for themselves through the thick and thin of it, through everything life dare throws at them.

Luisa closes her eyes momentarily against the sunlight, letting it warm her face.

“It was a terrible idea to come here,” Rose sighs, and Luisa opens her eyes again, concerned. “I never want to leave.”

Luisa’s laugh is quiet agreement.

She wants to say, _we don’t have to_ , but they do.

“Duchess would never forgive us if we didn’t come home,” she says, instead, and Rose nods in quiet agreement.

“Rafael would never forgive us, either,” she adds, and Luisa snorts at the thought of her brother and their over-zealous dalmatian. “I’m glad we did this, though,” Rose continues, sliding a hand across the table, playing with Luisa’s fingers until she takes her hand. “It feels so good to have finally finished that list.”

“Oh,” Luisa says, her face falling. “We haven’t.”

“What?”

“Yeah, there’s just one thing left.”

Luisa pulls the folded sheet out of her purse, uncrumpling it. She checks it herself, confirms that she’s right, and doesn’t stop Rose when she reaches across the table to take it for herself. “See?” she says, while Rose scrutinises the sheet back-to-front. “Just the one left.”

Rose is about to ask where this elusive point is on the to-do-list, when she sees it.

It’s written in smaller, neater handwriting than her own, and tacked on at the very bottom of the list in black ink instead of blue. Rose’s heart stops when she sees it. Across the table, Luisa rustles in one of their shopping bags, and finally produces a small bag that Rose hadn’t seen before. On it is a logo from one of the jewellery stores they’d been in hours prior.

She doesn’t remember Luisa sneaking off alone to purchase anything, but she clearly must have.

“Open it,” Luisa tells her, and she’s a sea of calm to Rose’s breathless surprise.

Rose reaches for the bag with trembling fingers, undoing the ribbon that keeps it closed. Inside, she feels for the velvet case that she’s already expecting, and draws it unsteadily out. She looks to Luisa, again, only to receive an encouraging nod, but when Rose turns back to the case tears are already blurring her vision.

Inside her hand is a box, and inside the box is a ring, and before Rose even opens it she says, “ _yes_.”

Luisa blurts out a nervous laugh, but her eyes are filling with tears. “At least look at it, first.”

“Yes,” Rose says, again.

“ _Rose_.”

“I’m sorry—” Rose chokes, and her fingers shake so hard that it takes her a moment to even get into the box.

When she does, it’s _perfect_.

“Please tell me those are happy tears,” Luisa says, slipping out of her chair. Rose presses a hand to her mouth and doesn’t understand why she’s crying; she tries to speak but only gasps, sobs, and finally just nods her head. She reaches for Luisa with both hands when she’s close, when she’s down on one knee beside her chair.

“Rose—”

“ _Yes_. Yes!”

“You’re supposed to let me ask fi—”

“Yes,” Rose sobs, and she takes Luisa by the face and kisses her, wet and trembling. She pulls back almost instantly to gasp and shake her head, but she is _beaming_. “I can’t believe you,” she tries to say, but Luisa kisses her again. Rose thinks she hears applause from the restaurant, but it barely registers when she draws back and sees Luisa’s face, sees her soft and teary and so full of love that Rose _aches_.

“I love you,” Luisa tells her, and it sets Rose off crying again.

 

 

Later, exhausted, Luisa tosses her phone onto her own bed and very nearly joins it.

“Raf said he’ll drop Pongo off after I’m back from work tomorrow,” she tells Rose while she pulls her shirt up and over her head. “He didn’t sound half as tired as he did the last time he took him. I think if we leave them together any longer, he’ll never bring him home.” She pulls a pyjama top on and turns to watch Rose at her dressing table, taking out her earrings.

“I’d never allow that to happen,” Rose says, meeting her gaze in the mirror, and Luisa smirks despite herself.

“Your crime boss voice really turns me on, did you know? Just… maybe not when you’re threatening my brother.”

Rose rolls her eyes, returning to her task at hand.

Luisa moves into their en suite bathroom, instead, manoeuvring out of her bra and throwing it straight into the laundry basket as she passes it. She scoops Duchess out of the sink so that she can clean her teeth and her face. Alone, she looks at herself in the mirror, at the smile that’s fixed to her face, and wonders how she pulled this off.

“Can we tell Rafael tomorrow?” she calls through to Rose.

“Of course – and your dad, if you can get a hold of him.”

Luisa’s grin deepens.

“God,” she says, stretching, “I’m so glad we finally finished that damn list, though.”

Rose makes a muffled, noncommittal noise from the bedroom, and Luisa steps out of the bathroom to better hear her. “I wouldn’t be too sure,” is all Rose says, nearing her. She kisses Luisa briefly on the cheek as she passes her to enter the bathroom and complete her own nightly rituals before bed.

Luisa is about to turn after her, when she spots the list on the dressing table.

It’s placed deliberately to show the front page, and Luisa feels her heartrate spike as she picks it up, turns it over. On the back of the page, written beneath her own scrawl, and in Rose’s looping handwriting, are three words that make Luisa audibly gasp.

‘ _Start a family._ ’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we have it. Thanks much for all the feedback along the way. :)


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